Broward schools build pools (total price: $8 million plus) but don't teach their students how to swim

Taxpayers paid $4.7 million for a new outdoor pool at Nova High, which is… (Susan Stocker, Sun Sentinel )

April 11, 2011|By Megan O'Matz, Sun Sentinel

Broward schools budgeted more than $8 million on a pair of new 10-lane pools for use after school hours by swim and dive teams.

The pools at Nova and Fort Lauderdale high schools weren't designed with physical education classes in mind and may not be suitable at all for novice swimmers, since they are 7 feet deep at the shallow end.

The expense, and the pools' limited use, has some parents fuming.

"No one can say with a straight face they spent $4 million for a swim team. That's absurd," said Nick Sakhnovsky, who thinks at that hefty cost to taxpayers, Nova's facility should be open to his 14-year-old son and other pupils at nearby Nova Middle for swim classes.

The Nova High pool opened in September, but swimming classes are not being offered this year and likely won't be in the future. Nova High Principal John R. LaCasse said the pool's depth, crucial for competitive swimming, makes it ill-suited for swimming lessons during physical education classes.

At Fort Lauderdale High, the pool is being built across a busy street that students are not permitted to cross during the school day due to "safety concerns," said Principal Marie Wright. That pool is to be completed in October.

As designed, the pools at Nova and Fort Lauderdale high schools, each measuring 25 yards long, are intended "strictly for the training, conditioning and competition of swimmers, divers and water polo players," district spokeswoman Marsy Smith said.

That came as a surprise to two School Board members. Robin Bartleman said she thought the new facilities would be used for physical education classes, as well as for sports teams. "When you build a pool that's what you assume," she told the Sun Sentinel.

She said she would ask district staff to report back to her on the matter.

"We want children to learn how to swim," she said.

Board member Maureen Dinnen, who represents Fort Lauderdale, said she did not have all the facts and asked Superintendent Jim Notter to review the issue.

At a workshop Friday, the School Board did not get data on the use of each of the district's 14 pools, but discussed how to make better use of them, including leasing them to outside groups. "We have a whole bunch of pools that aren't being used to capacity," Bartleman said.

Because the new pools at Nova and Fort Lauderdale are too deep for young children, the district has added smaller, 3-foot deep "teaching pools" at each site so area elementary students can learn to swim in them through SWIM Central, a county-run program. The cost of the pools is incorporated into the price of the larger pools.

SWIM Central has not yet received district permission to teach at the Nova High pool.

For Sakhnovsky, chairman of Nova Middle's School Advisory Council, the decision to build costly pools without planning first for their full use is an illustration in miniature of the district's larger problem: spending large sums on construction without firm educational goals.

"When you have spending money as the primary objective, you get money wasted on a massive scale," he said.

Area swim coaches, though, say the money is not wasted. "These are the most versatile facilities you could possibly come up with. They're beautifully designed," said Duffy Dillon, director of Fort Lauderdale Aquatics, a club for youths and adults that trains at the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

Though the new pools are too deep for swimmers to touch bottom while standing, beginners can use floatation devices or kickboards until they're comfortable in the water, he said.

"I believe we're going to work through the issues to get the pools used," Dillon said. "It just takes time."

Funding for Fort Lauderdale High's new pool was approved by the School Board in June 2008 and it was slated to be built on district property across Fourth Avenue, a four-lane road. Various proposals were floated to deal with the road problem, including building a pedestrian bridge or re-routing the road.

Neither happened.

Even if the school does works out a way to get the students safely across the street, Fort Lauderdale High has only one physical education teacher. As of now, the school "has a lack of personnel to adequately supervise students in the pool during a PE class," Smith said.

Another new pool is slated to be built in Hollywood at South Broward High, which has a marine magnet program and wants the pool so students can test remotely operated underwater vehicles they build to study coral reefs and explore shipwrecks.

"For our school, the pool isn't just a luxury for the swim team," said Donna Greene, Parent Advisory chairperson at South Broward High. "We really need it for our curriculum."

It is up to each of the county's public schools whether to offer swimming in its physical education program, Diane Carr, Broward schools executive director of core curriculum, said in a statement to the Sun Sentinel.